


Cerine

by Kastaka



Category: Masquerades & Massacres
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 06:57:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10781853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kastaka/pseuds/Kastaka
Summary: Compilation of Cerine fic from lrpdrabbles LJ





	1. Butterflies & Bording Axes

_Now I've heard there was a secret chord  
That David played, and it pleased the Lord  
But you don't really care for music, do ya?_

"Looks like we're the most eligible ladies there."

They were going through the guest list, eyes bright and smiles all round, teasing each other about the prospects for a successful marriage.

"There's hardly anyone who isn't poor or old," she sighed, reaching up to fiddle with an imaginary strand of hair which she expected to have come loose from her rather imposing hairdo. "Or _foreign_."

"There's the prince," pointed out Sophia, turning back to the front page.

"He's an _aviator_!" she exclaimed, with mock horror at her sister's jest.

"Yes, yes," replied Jessamyn, dwelling on the inside pages. "Hmm, some of those Americans are rather wealthy..."

_It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth  
The minor fall, the major lift  
The baffled king composing Hallelujah_

The party was _not_ getting off to a good start.

First they had waited for what seemed like ever in the dimming light, which of course was expected for ladies of their station, but not the enormous pauses in between announcements and the shocking quantity of guests who just hadn't seen fit to show up for dinner.

Then her heart sank as she was finally ushered into the candlelit room - neatly sidestepping what was almost a terrible embarrassment in front of the hosts on her dear cousin's part - and saw the name on the place setting next to her own.

Her only hope was that he might not be showing up at all, having not come in at the correct position for his precedence, but naturally she was not to be spared and Mr Jacob Kipling was in fact just rather unfashionably late to the party.

Fortunately the seats were such that she could contrive to be angled away from the repulsive gentleman, although the rest of the table were hardly the most inspiring company, and she did rather feel for her poor Sophia who received the brunt of the unpleasant man's 'conversation', if one could call it that.

The other diversion available was, alas, some awfully dry politics being offered by the Prinz, a gentleman with the most disturbing red eyes who swiftly demonstrated his credentials as quite the wrong kind of libertine - most disappointing. Not a salacious story in sight, just a long and weary recitation of deeply unsuitible opinions on religious and social matters.

She exchanged a few glances with her elder sister, who appeared to be having infinitely more fun on her table, and tried to derive some enjoyment from the cold soup and gazing mournfully into the candlelight while making snide comments to complement the appalling barrage coming from her left.

But mostly, when she thought he wasn't looking, she was observing the Prince.

He looked rather melancholy, seated lonely at the High Table while the host (also discussed in the carriage on the way down - unmarried and worth an awful lot, but far too enamoured of his Indian, and as it happened he looked to be rather past it in any case) carried on in a most unbecoming and frankly disgusting manner with that gaudy and uncivilised magician of his. 

In the candlelight, the Prince's face - that some unkind girls might have described as 'ruined' - looked merely... rugged. Maybe him being an aviator wasn't so bad after all...

_Your faith was strong but you needed proof  
You saw her bathing on the roof  
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya_

"And we simply must procure introductions to the Prince."

That rather creepy gentleman, Mr Featherstonehaugh or something like that, practically crept up on the conversation and invited himself to it at that point.

"There is no need to worry, my dear ladies; I can provide such an introduction."

Both sisters looked at him with some incredulity, but they were saved from such a fate by the master of ceremonies, who approached them at that very moment and informed them that the Prince sought to introduce himself to the pair of them.

Much fluttering and curtseying ensued, and Jessamyn of course was the first to venture a question beyond the initial formalities.

"If it's not too forwards," she said, "what exactly should we be calling you? His Royal Highness?"

"His Royal Highness will do, I suppose," he said with an air of faint confusion. "Or Prince-Lieutenant. Or, you know, just George."

Another wave of fluttering broke out at that comment. Surely he couldn't be serious?

On the other hand... he was an aviator.

"And what would you _prefer_?" Jessamyn pressed him.

"Just George, if you would," he replied. "It is my name, after all."

It was while she was quite unsteady from this that the most ghastly noise erupted from the corridors of the house, and the next thing she knew, the Prince's captain was carrying her away into the main building for a nice sit down and a glass of water.

"But... Dr Bellamy?" she quavered to Angelica, sipping at the glass. "He's been in our _house!_ For _years_!"

And she had fainted in front of the _Prince_. She had never felt so mortified in her life. Fortunately she had poor Angelica to comfort, and the rather disturbing background of a bloodstained Featherstonehaugh showing his true colours, to distract her from her embarrassment...

_She tied you to a kitchen chair  
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair  
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah_

She scarcely heard the song the first time that the Americans sang it, save those few immortal lines that drifted across as she approached the croquet game. After her apology to the captain and the morning constitutional, the talk of fire-breathers and boarding axes, the sound of it was haunting as a counterpoint to the thoughts she was only just beginning to discover.

"The most dangerous part," he had said, "is jumping. Imagine - you've got one dragon, and another dragon, maybe thirty feet apart, with this terrible cliff in between them..."

"More like twenty-five at most," his captain had interrupted.

"The negotiations start at forty," he had insisted, jovially, much more at home arguing with his captain than in the normal course of conversation. "She gets the dragon maybe slightly in the vicinity of the other, you see, and says, 'Off you go!'."

"Then you refuse," prompted the captain.

"Of course I do!" he exclaimed. "I say to her, 'I can just about _see_ that dragon in the _distance_. Perhaps a human-shaped _locust_ could jump that far.' And she says, 'I can't possibly get any closer - my _dragon_ might get hurt!"

There is polite laughter and fluttering of fans. It all seems very dashing, very romantic and distant, here on the lawn with the butterflies playing among the wildflowers in the July sunlight.

Back in the present, he hands her the croquet mallet, and they make their excuses and leave the croquet game for some serious discussion or other, something young and useless girls like her have no part in. The strange mix of foreigners and ladies playing the game are being awfully co-operative, but it is just as well as the grass is practically impenetrable.

He makes a nice shield to hide next to while the other ladies are being taken to task by the Marchioness for their idleness and subsequent unforgivable rudeness, in any case.

Later, she gets them to play the song again, and sings along, trying to learn it as they sing. Trying not to cry. She knows then that she is set on this course, and although she has made no public decision, it still makes her almost weep - the loss, the end of her childhood.

She hopes that her sister will forgive her.

_Baby, I've been here before  
I know this room, I've walked this floor  
I used to live alone before I knew ya._

"Well, it looks like everyone on site has decided to come here, so I supposed I may as well."

She had been intending to sit out the magical scrying, maybe in the shade of the treeline with Angelica, but even the Kipling girl was present in the yurt as they warned once again that parts of the retelling might be unpleasant.

"Let's move around a little," she urged, "no sense in blocking the doorway."

Sophia, of course, had positioned herself right at the table, her delicate white and pastel day-dress contrasting sharply with the bold shades of military uniform surrounding her. The Prince re-emerged from the crowd with a chair, looking tremendously pleased with himself for acquiring it, and triumphantly placed it against the wall of the yurt. He looked worried as the practicioners stressed again that there might be disturbing scenes, but she reassured him that she could scarcely see the thing from here, and in any case, that was what fans were for.

"For days we travelled across the barren ice..."

At first she watched the reactions on her sister's face, with occasional nervous glances at the impressive snowscapes that seemed to be dominating what little she could see of the scrying pool itself. With every 'by Jove', warning of another less delicate episode in the unfolding narrative, she was amused to see the Prince edge a little closer, venture another comforting gesture, and nervously attempt to check her approval of his proximity.

"And, by Jove, the things we saw on the freizes..."

Her fan was very interesting right now, as she did not want to see the looks on the faces of the people actually watching the scrying pool during the description that followed, but the words of Hawke themselves were quite enough to make the (somewhat forwards) arm around her shoulders and the opportunity to swap a nervous joke about big fuzzy bears rather welcome.

"I can't hold it for much longer, the magic is fading."

And they stumbled back out into the sunlight, where there were games and music and dancing, and her sisters wanted to tell her things, and she could almost forget that out there somewhere there were strange creatures ready to tear men limb from limb... except for those moments when she looked at the purple marks on her sister Jessamyn's eyes and on her fingernails, and wondered just what they could mean.

"You know that patrol I was talking about? I wasn't joking - we really are going off to patrol the grounds..."

She was waiting for him to reappear, but the music was starting and Featherstonehaugh got to her first. The gentleman who had been spending so much time with her sister probably said something, but he scarcely needed to - the approach and the eye contact was enough. She looked around for a moment, in case the patrol was just that moment returning, but there was no such relief - and she did rather want to dance. And it wasn't as if Featherstonehaugh was any kind of threat.

"Oh, go on then," she said, letting him lead her onto the courtyard where the dancing was to take place.

She scarcely thought that she had heard him right when he said the first unacceptable thing to her, while they were making a particularly failed transition between dancing moves, but by the time he said the second she was trying so hard not to burst into a fit of giggles that she scarcely noticed the rest of the dance, although she was aware enough of her surroundings to throw a longing glance in her love's direction when he did finally return from the patrol mid-dance.

Of course, she immediately ran and told Jessamyn what that cad Featherstonehaugh had said while dancing, with appropriate shrieks of scandalised laughter. It was good to have sisters.

_I've seen your flag on the marble arch  
But love is not a victory march  
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah_

"You do know what you're letting yourself in for, right?"

She had been on tenterhooks all evening - ever since Jessamyn had conveyed to her that afternoon that the Prince was indeed interested in her hand in marriage - so when the captain asked her if she had a moment, she was all too eager to hear what she had to say.

"Marriage to an Aerial Corps officer isn't like marriage to an ordinary man."

Bracing herself for the revelation, she unfurled and furled her fan repeatedly in nervous fingers. She had heard, of course, what they said about aviators. How there were no social conventions in the covert. How they had no moral boundaries, and perhaps this was because the dragons compelled them thus.

"It's not like having a husband in the Navy, where they might be away from home for maybe a year at a time, but then they will be back for perhaps just as long."

The revelations that the captain wanted to impart to her seemed far less momentous than the ones she had feared to hear. She scarcely assimilated their meaning until she had finished nodding with obvious relief and reassuring the captain that of course she was still interested, and even then she was interrupted breifly by the Prince himself.

"I don't want to make a proposal that you might feel bound to accept," he admitted, while they sat in the shade of the veranda. "Take your time to think it over."

"I'll visit you and your dragon in the covert," she said, trying to keep the shaking out of her voice. "Sophia simply must be introduced to your dragon, in any case. And... and then we can... see where it goes from there."

She walked out of the conversation as he made his excuses and went to talk incomprehensible politics in such a way as to obviously exclude her. Walked across the courtyard and into the deserted building. It was quieter here. She could almost hear herself think.

If she had truly got what she wanted... why did she feel so wretched?

She walked outside again, behind the house, where she could be alone in the shade with the cool green trees, and she began to sing that song, and the tears came into her eyes. It was not the fairytale that she had been led to believe her life would be. But, damn it all, she loved him!

"No, Cerine," she told herself. "You are not a silly little girl. This is an important occasion. You cannot make a scene of yourself. And you absolutely cannot be seen to be crying."

Keeping back her tears, restoring herself to the appropriate composure, she strode out of her hiding place and went to join the ladies at their conversation.

_There was a time you let me know  
What's really going on below  
But now you never show it to me, do ya?_

He apologised profusely in advance for his lack of skill, and that it was late in the evening and there may not be another dance in any case, but all she really heard was that he was finally not being called away for this or that, that he was actually offering her a dance at last.

She kept him to his word and dragged him to the courtyard when the announcer declared the next dance to be a 'couples dance', a slow dance, a prospect that seemed to turn him paler than any courageous leap between dragons in mid-air might, although to her it had the opposite effect, sending her heart soaring into the sky and bringing an enchanted smile to her lips.

Listening to the instructions, and mindful of his warnings, she subtly positioned them so that she might lead the waltzing section. No need to actively court disaster, after all. Everyone else would likely be attending to their own footwork, and the company had not proved to stand on convention that much for the earlier parts of the day in any case. If anything was remembered from this ball, it would be the episode where she danced with the tiny Polish lady, not the slight lack of correctness in their waltzing.

Some sections of the dance were _decidedly_ pleasant in a way that she was sure was scandalously inappropriate with a suitor of a couple of days acquaintance, and his commentary - "Is this some kind of endurance event? Last one standing wins?" - was equally delightful, although she was beginning to agree with him after a little while.

Then the screaming started.

"I'm terribly sorry, you will excuse me?" he asked as he dropped the ballroom hold and went for his sword, actually pausing a moment for her reply.

"Of course," she replied, with equal smiling courtesy, before stumbling backwards and being ushered into the house with the other ladies.

_And remember when I moved in you  
The holy dove was moving too  
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah_

They had just picked up Marie-Clare from her feet (her feet! where she'd fallen! when the servant did something to her!) when she saw him slumped in a corner, clutching his chest.

"I don't suppose," he said, "that you could find me a surgeon? When they're done with the others, of course."

She was nowhere near as nonchalant about the whole affair. "Promise!" she screamed. "Promise, get over here right now!"

Later, she and Angelica were the only ones in the safety of the building when they dragged him in. Something she couldn't quite bear to look at was wrong with his chest, and she began to desperately thumb through the book that the servant had given her.

"Bones... bones... no, nothing for bones... there's a lot of blood... let's try bleeding. Ah, yes, bleeding!"

Angelica hovered nervously, awaiting her instructions, determined to do some good.

"Fold a handkerchief over twice - I suppose that pad of cloth there would do, Angelica? - and apply it to the wound. Apply firm pressure..."

The young Kipling girl managed to get some cloth and a bandage quite thoroughly soaked in blood, and at Cerine's frantic cries of 'more pressure', moved something which certainly got a reaction, if not a terribly encouraging one.

"Coughing!" cried Cerine desperately. "What does it say for coughing?"

"Mix one third cough syrup with water..." read Angelica nervously, still maintaining the pressure on the wound.

Cough syrup... cough syrup... what could be used as cough syrup in a pinch? Her eyes alighted on the bottle of rum, and she snatched it up desperately.

"Hey now, missy," said one of the Monroe brothers, "we need that."

"Just a little drop," she begged.

"Just a drop, then," he conceded, pouring it sparingly into the glass she was proffering, which already had a little water in it.

She brought it back over to the hyperventilating Angelica and the terribly still form of the Prince slumped on the chair, and gently attempted to pour the concoction into his mouth, trying to touch him as little as possible - it just wasn't proper, and he was going terribly cold and clammy to the touch...

...and he spluttered a little and woke, and began to instruct Angelica on how to properly secure that bandage she'd been trying to apply, as Cerine practically collapsed in relief.

_You say I took the name in vain  
Well, I don't even know the name  
But if I did, well really, what's it to ya?_

She helplessly watched as he disappeared into the darkness, and gradually she became aware of the conversation behind her.

"You'll help, won't you, Miss Angelica? The more we can get the better..."

The Laffeyte-Monroe family were setting up some kind of ritual behind her. It all looked very Catholic - the candles, the incense, the bones - but she needed to do something.

"May I?" she asked, taking a place in the circle.

"Sure thing, honey," replied Marie-Clare as she arranged the various magical accouterments. Then she turned back to the Catholic lady who was questioning her on the matter. "Of course we worship the Almighty God, honey," she said. "We might just do it a mite differently, that's all. We got it from West Africa. These Loa we're calling, they're just like, a kind of angel."

The lady decided not to participate, but Catholics were strange like that, right? And she'd said angels, not saints. Maybe it was a properly Protestant summoning after all. Fairchilde even had his Bible out.

"So, we start by stamping one foot, like this," explained Marie-Clare, waiting for the assembled to get into rhythm. "Then just follow along, you'll soon get the hang of it."

She picked up the skull from the table, and looked it straight in the eyes.

"Oh grandma," she declared, in a voice that brooked no interruptions, "we do call on you now, grandma. We give you ears to hear!" and she kissed the skull in the places where Cerine supposed there, well, would once have been ears, "we give you eyes to see!" and she kissed the skull in each eye socket while Cerine shrank back into the wall and tried not to think too hard about that. Rhythm. Got to keep the rhythm. "We give you smoke to fill your lungs!"

Stomp, clap. Stomp, clap. Stomp, clap. Suddenly there was a presence in the room - not saying anything yet, just waiting. Stomp, clap. The world spun slightly around Cerine, with the incense and the feeling hanging in the air, but in that moment she caught Angelica's eyes and she saw the terror in the other girl, and she knew she had to keep it together.

"It's okay, Angelica," she whispered across the stamping crowd, holding Angelica's gaze with her own, hoping that her eyes did not betray her own feelings on the matter. She nodded to reinforce her statement, perhaps as much in her own mind as for the other girl. "Everything's okay. Trust me."

She just about caught a glimpse of Marie-Clare and Jean-Phillipe locked in a passionate embrace that surely in usual times they would keep extremely private, but she supposed that these were not usual times, and anyway, if she lost it then Angelica would lose it and goodness knows what that would do to the summoning.

Stomp, clap. Stomp, clap.

Then finally it was over, and the Americans were evaporating into the night. Fairchilde, pale and shaking, muttered prayers to the Almighty for his soul, but she had no time for that. She was about to let herself go when Angelica gave her that drowning look and they only just made it to the seats when a ghastly apparition appeared at the window, the sounds of fighting took a distinctly bestial turn, and both ladies fainted dead away.

_There's a blaze of light in every word  
It doesn't matter which you heard  
The holy or the broken Hallelujah_

The sounds of singing filled the house.

She did make a very _pretty_ werewolf.

They'd run out of cigars, so she lit an incense stick from one of the candles and offered that to Grandma in its place.

"There are only four of them left."

"How do you know?"

"That Indian magician did some kind of scrying thing."

Being brought back to life by the Fae seemed to have done him a world of good.

"Bandages! I need bandages!"

"Here," she said softly, passing them over.

Perhaps they would weather this storm. After all, they were British. Well, some of them, anyway.

_Maybe there's a God above,  
But all I ever learned from love  
Is how to shoot at someone who outdrew ya._

She was on her feet and at her sister's side before she knew that she had left her chair, Angelica hovering above them, Sophia (mercifully unhurt, even though she had taken to wandering about in the dark with a sword) at Jessamyn's other hand. She thought about the book, but a surgeon was there already, so she held Jessamyn's hand and tried to soothe her as best she could, while not looking at what the aliens had done to her sister's leg.

Unbelievably, the surgeon shook their head. "I can't do anything more for her."

"Another surgeon!" wailed Cerine. "Angelica, go and fetch another surgeon!"

Angelica, bless her pure heart, immediately darted away towards the door and returned promptly with Fairchilde, who set to work immediately in a confident fashion.

"Hold her still," he requested.

"Sssh, sssh," attempted Cerine, squeezing her sister's hand a little tighter. "Try to..."

But Sophia had already taken the more direct approach to immobilising Jessamyn, and was practically sitting on top of her sister.

"Sophia!" exclaimed Cerine. That was not the way to behave in public! Then she thought of all the other things tonight which should not have been done in public, but had been anyway and seemingly to good effect, and felt terribly embarrassed at her scolding. Fortunately Sophia seemed to take it in good part, and less fortunately there was little time to dwell on it.

"It won't stop bleeding," concluded Fairchilde mournfully.

Cerine suddenly became aware of the Fae who was watching the scene.

"Briarwolf!" cried Sophia. "Can you do anything?"

"Oh, I can save the mortal's life," he said. "The question is, how much does she want it?"

"Briarwolf," Sophia practically growled. "Our sister is _dying_. Won't you _save_ her?"

"Oh, certainly I will," he replied. "For ten years of her life."

"What?"

"You heard me, little creature," replied Briarwolf, in a casually amused fashion. "Ten years of her life she will spend in my domain, and for that I will grant her the rest of her miserable existance."

Sophia exchanged a look with Cerine, and both of them looked at Jessamyn, but she was too incoherant with the pain to give an answer.

"Which ten years?" asked Sophia, eyes narrow.

"Just ten years," replied Briarwolf airily. "Whenever I want them."

Visions danced through Cerine's head of what he might mean by that, having spoken with others about the Fae and their bargains. Ten years was a lot of distruption, in a couple of hours every day... but to lose her sister altogether, even if a short journey to Heaven was preferable to a long purgatory of Fae-bound existance...

"Could..." ventured Angelica, in the frailest of voices. Briarwolf turned swiftly towards her, a graceful but sudden movement, and she wavered for a moment but to her great credit she held it together and did not faint under the faerie's gaze.

"Or her," he said. "I'll take ten years of her life, for the return of your sister."

Sophia looked up at the other girl, eyes burning. "Do it," she demanded.

Stranded on a sea of contradictions, Cerine attempted to will herself into saying something. Into warning Angelica what she was getting into, warning her off accepting a bargain with the Fae. Angelica looked at her desperately, and she could only match her desperation back. She could not form words. She could not let her sister die, for the comfort of a relative stranger. She was, she knew in the dark recesses of her heart, happy to trade Angelica's innocence and beauty - Angelica's soul - for even the faintest hope of life for her sister.

"Yes," murmured Angelica, trapped a rabbit looking up into the foaming muzzle of a cart-horse. "Yes," she repeated more boldly, "I'll do it. Just... heal her."

Briarwolf sprang into a crouch and laid his hands on Jessamyn's shoulders. "BY THE POWER OF THE FAE," he declared, "BE HEALED!"

_It's not a cry you hear at night,  
It's not someone who's seen the light;  
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah._

It was not so straightforwards when he brought his captain in, looking lost and bewildered, like a child who had broken his favourite toy.

"It's my captain," he said, redundantly, as she sat clutching the book and the bandages, alone now the Fae had taken Angelica. "Can you do something?"

She looked around the room for healers, but all of them were busy tending to other would-be corpses. _I was saving the last of the book for you_ , she thought, numbly. _I was saving it for you._ But the look in his eyes, like a lost little boy, brooked no disagreement. She stumbled from her seat and gazed with numb horror on the broken mess that had once been his handsome captain.

"Blood... blood..." she could barely turn the pages of the book, she was shaking so much. She looked aghast at the size of the ruined area, skipped down the page from the advice about a handkercheif. There wasn't a handkercheif in the world that could cover this wound. "Salt," she declared. "We're going to need some salt."

By the time he was back with the salt, a real surgeon had managed to disentangle themselves from their patient, and to Cerine's relief took over the treatment swiftly and efficiently as she swayed twice and then dropped to the ground. It was scarcely a real faint. She could still see things, could probably move around if she could summon the energy thereto...

"Move out of the way! More wounded coming!"

...and she pulled herself into a corner, looking blankly out at the world. Dimly, she was aware of her sisters, trying to persuade her to sit on a chair, trying to comfort her. She wished they would go away. There was nobody home for them to comfort. She was sitting on a chair, a little while later, when she thought to raise her head, and there he was - her love, her darling Prince - laughing, exultant, with the Faerie, and with the blood running down his face and neck, the blood staining his teeth, like a wild animal, like he'd just torn the throat from something living...

"Wake up, Cerine. Wake up!"

Her sisters, again. And... Angelica with them? Angelica, pale as a ghost? Perhaps she was a ghost. She couldn't see her very clearly. She couldn't see her through all the blood.

"The blood," whimpered Cerine. "The blood."

The blood on the bandages. The bloody ruin of the captain's chest. The blood in his mouth.

"You can't cry, Cerine," Sophia was saying. "You're not allowed to cry, because then I'll start crying, and I have too much to do..."

_I did my best, it wasn't much  
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch  
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you_

His words echoed through her mind as he and the captain tried to tame their anecdotes for Angelica's ears.

"I'm sure I'll be a lousy husband," he had said, "but you shouldn't be afraid to tell me when I'm doing something wrong. I promise to screw everything up and never get anything right the first time. But I will change for you, if you ask me to. That's what I promise you. A perfect second time."

She had told him how that kind of promise made him a paragon among men, but despite the example of his father staring him in the face from the sad anecdotes of his family that he dwellt on from time to time, he didn't seem capable of accepting the complement.

"You do know that, every time I jump from a dragon, the chances of my survival are a little less than one in two?" he had said. "I don't know. Tell me that at least the title will make you happy? You'll still be a Princess when I'm gone."

She wanted to clutch at him, to wail, to tell him the truth. That it was all she would have wanted, on the carriage ride here, that she had thought herself perfectly capable of being happy with a husband as a status symbol, away on a ship or on business. That it was also her fairytale dream that her husband would be always attentive by her side as she lived her short but beautiful life. That now she hardly knew what she wanted, except that she wanted him, she loved him, and she wanted so much to make him happy that she scarcely cared about her side of the arrangement.

"Go on. Ask me anything," he'd said. "About... the coverts. About fighting. About anything. I'm drunk enough and tired enough that I might just give you an answer."

But when she danced around the question that she wanted to ask, it took her some time to find the right phrasing to get a reply. His defence of the way the dragon-men acted was worth waiting for, though, and exactly what she wanted to hear.

"I suppose the way I look at it is," he said in conclusion, "society isn't going to consider them gentlemen, whatever they do, so they don't see a need to consider themselves gentlemen either. And we're British. We make the best of the situation in which we find ourselves. Isn't that what being British is all about?"

Angelica giggled shyly at the banter between the captain and her lieutenant, and sitting here on the veranda exchanging stories it was hard to imagine there were such things as the aliens in the world at all.

_And even though it all went wrong  
I'll stand before the Lord of Song  
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah_

"I'll understand if you don't think you can go through with it," he said.

Perhaps he thought she couldn't see how he was practically leaning against the wall for support, as if he'd finally misjudged his leap and was even now falling towards the unforgiving earth. Perhaps he thought she couldn't see the desperation in his eyes.

"I can't make this decision for you, sister," said Jessamyn, the pain of her recent discovery written across her face.

"I..." the world spun dangerously, but with an iron will she drew herself back and faltered only in speech rather than in poise.

"You don't have to give me your decision now," he said, the customary mask of military detachment gradually returning to his features. "Take some time to think about it."

She tried to speak again, but before she could say another word he had pulled himself away from the wall and headed off again.

"Do you still want to marry him?" asked Jessamyn.

"Yes, of course, I..." she gushed embarrassingly.

"Well, then, go and tell him!" her sister insisted.

But there was something new in Cerine after that evening, and for once she stood her ground.

"No," she said. "I think it would comfort him more to think that I did spend the time to consider it."

"Well," replied Jessamyn, at something of a loss. "Don't tell him, then!"

And then she was gone to find her own prospective match, leaving Cerine a moment to gather her wits before heading back out into the glorious sunshine to try to enjoy the remainder of the morning.


	2. Intrigue & Impressions

She hadn't really noticed the plump little Polish girl until she saw the slavering pile of teeth and claws wearing the remnants of Serafina's clothing.

When she had finished having another fit of the vapours, she heard the other girl calling the werewolf's name - "Serafina! Serafina!" - and very slightly more of the world fell into place.

She wished Quintain well with his bride-to-be, as awkward as his conversion made certain political matters. A step down for him, perhaps - she had thought to investigate him herself until the blind arrows of love had caused events to take their course - but a perfect match in all other respects. 

At least it was unlikely they would ever get bored of each other.

\----

She had been surprised how easy it had been to absorb Cousin Robert back into the family, but she supposed it was because he didn't really do anything, just kind of stood there taking up space.

"Dinner. We are going to dinner. Dinner would be a good idea right now."

While the revelation made some things a little clearer, she had far too much to think about to really take it in. In any case, Jessamyn appeared to be doing enough fussing for all three of them.

"Oh, I last saw her in the room with Robert..."

You did what? The mental images crowded unpleasantly into Cerine's head, nothing a young lady should be thinking about, and she hoped that it was only appropriate sisterly concern that she showed on her face as she picked up her skirts and ran.

He looked so hapless and confused as she demanded to know where her sister, her precious sister, was. Not asking the question that hung in the air between them. 

She'd abandoned her first, after all. She didn't have the right to know, not any more. She didn't have the right to object.

"How is she doing? Is she okay?"

After that. Well. She couldn't really look at him. If she took in more than a glance, it might remind her. It was none of her business. She had her own affairs to conduct.

She was sure they would find some way around their impediments. She wished them every happiness. How could she not?

\----

All of the Americans were larger than life, and none so much as Marie-Clare, although maybe that was just because Cerine had the distinct impression that it was her and her sort that Marie-Clare was... imitating? Usurping?

From her dazzling colours to her dazzling eyes, Marie-Clare was overwhelming, an unstoppable force of nature. Cerine had thought she had got used to this kind of thing with Jessamyn's forwardness, but as with everything else the Americans just took it to an entirely new level, like nothing in her experience.

The most shocking thing - not the ritual, not the kiss, none of that - the most shocking thing, the thing that remained with Cerine as they made their goodbyes and parted, was the crying - and wailing and carrying on - right there in public under the veranda. 

She had thought it might have been something to do with the monsters, when she'd first heard Marie-Clare burst into tears. Sudden violence, injury to loved ones, those were acceptable things to be crying about in public - that was the kind of thing one was practically expected to make a scene about.

But it wasn't about that at all, was it? It was just some kind of selfish cry for attention - and as it transpired, attention that she had already secured, in any case!

Until then, she'd been willing to be charitable to the Americans. After all, one does talk a little loudly, get a little flustered, in higher company than one is accustomed to keeping, especially after such a journey as they must have undertaken. But some things are done, and some things are not done, and one simply must know the difference.

So she does not warn Marie-Clare. If she wants to be so brash, she can find out for herself. She is owed no sympathy, no support, no sisterhood after such an outburst.

The unbecoming should get what they deserve.

\----

There were certain stereotypes of the kind of woman one might find in the Aerial Corps. Words like 'wretched' and 'debased' might be bandied around, even. Certainly, Cerine had never thought to find one who was quite as pleasant and well-behaved as Captain Barton.

She claimed to have just grabbed her dress out of a dusty cupboard somewhere, but Cerine could scarcely imagine what she would look like in her normal uniform, so easily did she carry her proper outfit. The uniform spencer was just adorable, surely some thought had gone into that? Naturally a lady would play down the effort she had put into her wardrobe, that was just the way of things.

Certainly she might have been considered a little outspoken at times, but with the backdrop of the Americans and Cerine's own sister Jessamyn, any slight offence in that area was hardly noticable. And she did everything with such self-effacing confidence and joy that one could hardly fault her for any small infraction of general politeness.

Really, the lady was quite enchanting, and Cerine was ever so amused when the Prince expressed concern about how she might get on with his Captain. How could she fail to get along with such a charming and fine example of womanhood? Captain Barton had somehow retained her graces admirably, even in what most people considered to be unbearable adversity.

Perhaps all of the rumours about the Aerial Corps really were terribly exaggerated. She could hardly see how it could be otherwise.

\----

Some people's maids were quiet personable. She'd been shy to ask anything of Promise at first - naturally, as Marie-Clare's maid, she wasn't actually obliged to take orders from anyone else - but the little surgeon didn't seem to mind fetching some water for her sister.

She did have this sneaking suspicion, though, after the summoning, that Promise might consider herself more of a person than she had quite given her credit for. Certainly not all of the Americans were quite what they seemed...

\----

They had already made up their minds on FitzQuim quite before this little soiree, but every time that she didn't see the contemptible worm for a while she almost forgot how he was. 

While he did have some considerable income and some considerable family, the way he simply oozed around the subject of his obvious and rank cowardice on the night of the vampire reminded her how he wasn't at all eligible for any woman with even slightly more than fluff between her ears.

As she watched them walk off into the woods together, she rather hoped that he would end up with Marie-Clare. If anyone could play the ingenue long enough to snare him, then knock the edges off him and no mistake, surely it would be the brash American lady.

\----

Jessamyn, oh, Jessamyn, what will we do with you?

I don't suppose we really can do anything with you, not now you're off in a whirl of preparations for your next big adventure, catching along everyone around you in the tornado of your life, your presence. Not now you've caught an American - and I know he's worth a lot of money, sister, but will he make you happy? They are not like us, sister. They are not even slightly like us.

But I know, I know. You cannot be dragged from your course in any matter, how much less can you be dragged from the course of love, which has its own snares around your ankles, as well as the blithe stubbornness that keeps you from our advice? I remember your expression, the glowing happiness in your face, when you came to tell us of your incipient engagement. I was wrapped up in my own problems, but even then I knew the moment as too late.

It is too late to tell you not to look at their faces, but to look at their eyes. 

It is too late to tell you anything.


	3. Swords & Sisters, or A Lament For An Angel

For one unforgivable instant, Cerine succumbed to panic, like a trapped animal.

Someone had taken her sister's arm. Everyone had headed in already, while she was being polite at the door and not rushing in like an uncouth rabble. Robert and Sophia, Jessamyn and her twitchy Italian creature. And the spectre of Bellamy rising behind her, smiling in that parody of graciousness, and she could not bear to be near him for one moment longer...

...no, it was fine, Robert had caused some minor offence up in front (quite covering up her clinging to Jessamyn and whimpering) and she could surge forwards and disentangle the situation and feel properly in control once again.

\----

She was slightly distressed when Jessamyn was peeled away from the group to be placed at a different table - fortunately Bellamy and the Italian creature had been properly consigned to places further down the hall by then - but at least she had Robert and Sophia. Her sister was beautiful in the candlelight, angelic and nervous and perfect, shining as if to outdo the paltry illumination provided by the hosts.

As the other guests were seated, it was hard to keep snatching glances of her, though, even though they did revive Cerine's flagging spirits so. Her poor sister was practically flanked by disagreeable men, as she was herself. For much of dinner she couldn't stand the sight of that Kipling fellow so much that she forwent keeping an eye on her sister, although she did rather glow with pride when Sophia finally found her voice for a few choice, cutting words to deflate the filthy industrialist's ego.

Just listening to her talk about magic, the quiet lady at the end of the table contributing the most interesting conversation available at her sister's prompting... it went right over Cerine's head, of course, but it almost made up for the stale sweat mixed with bad perfume that all old people seemed to wear like a cape, rising up from the gentlemen seated next to and opposite her, mirrored around her sister.

\----

Finally they escaped out into the night, but here Cerine was a butterfly, floating carefree on the winds of conversation, and she lost track of her sister while talking to the darling girl who was apparently lumbered with that oaf of a gentleman for her father. Jessamyn was around and about, here and there, but Sophia only appeared after it all went down, materialising like a guardian angel just when Cerine needed comforting the most.

It was so tempting to bury herself in her sister, to just forget about the awful noise from the hallway and the blood running down Featherstonehaugh's arm, the reports of something toothed and clawed in the deceptively pleasant-looking woodlands. But not here, she had to forcibly remind herself, not right out here in public where she should be in control, at least of herself, regardless of the situation.

"I think we should retire for the evening," she suggested at last, and thankfully her sister agreed with her.

\----

The next day it felt like she spent half her time running after her sister. She knew it was hard for her at these things, that she didn't flow effortlessly with the tide of the crowd like Cerine always seemed to, but she did wish that Sophia wouldn't keep wandering off into the distance like that. It was bad enough that it looked dreadfully impolite to their hosts and companions, but now there was the extra edge to it - somewhere out in the woodlands there were Things.

Cerine didn't trust that her sister's natural curiosity wouldn't get the better of her. There was so much to be done, though, so many people to become acquainted with, so many conversations to contribute to. It was hard to keep track of her sister every moment of the day and also attend to all the matters that had been vouchsafed to her, all of the delicate dances of social attention she was attempting to perform.

The great flurry of courting in the air, and the way Sophia held herself apart from it, those made Cerine feel somewhat nervous around her favourite sister also. After they had played Dodge the Engagement so well with that miserable worm FitzQuim, it seemed almost churlish that Cerine would consider pursuing an attachment of her own, but these things didn't wait on their timing for a girl's convenience.

And with that occurring, she could hardly comment on the unseemly length of time that her sister was spending with that cad Featherstonehaugh, or on whatever was going on between her and Cousin Robert, much as she wanted to shake some sense into her sister and show her how obvious she was being with her ghastly choice of company.

She couldn't even really fault her if she had somehow fallen for either of them. If her heart had alighted on a less suitable match, she had to admit to herself that she would not have listened to any attempt to prevent her from pursuing it.

\----

Even when she'd made herself quite ill of standing out in the sun to pick wildflowers, when all of the ladies were meant to be keeping themselves out of the way while the men did the fighting, Sophia would keep wandering in and out, quite having been influenced in her boldness by her newly returned sister. For a time Cerine hovered anxiously by the door to catch the merest sight of her (or, it had to be said, her Prince), but the fear that she might accidentally catch another glimpse of one of those... things...

...well, that and Angelica's desperate entreaties from the well-lit safety of further into the dining hall mostly dissuaded her, or at least kept her pacing restlessly back and forth. From time to time, Sophia would return to comfort her, but no words of advice would penetrate this hunger that had possessed her sister, this need to know everything which had extended itself even to horrors.

The world was already so terribly surreal when Sophia picked up a sword that Cerine could barely comment on it. The whole affair was so outside of Cerine's frame of reference that she could barely whisper, "keep yourself safe." It didn't seem worthwhile to argue. Nothing made sense any more; nothing made sense this night. There was no reason in the situation, so why should there be reason in her sister's actions?

\----

Cerine clung to her sister like a drowning animal, the world having lost too much consistency for words to pass between them. There was Jessamyn, on her other side, trying to reason with her, to help her up with arguments and language. She supposed, vaguely, in the distant place where she had gone, that this was all perfectly normal for Jessamyn. Sophia understood more of what was going on, and she supported her with her body, waited until they were upright to deliver the few words that Cerine needed to hear.

She could not carry on in her own strength, not through this, not through the world having turned upside down and all her referents having gone astray. Not through the blood in his mouth, the blood on his captain, the blood on the handkerchief... but she could do it for her sister.

She nodded and choked back her tears, knowing the moment of clarity would be fleeting, knowing that her sister - her beautiful sister, her perfect shining angel, her love - would head back out into the darkness again, and maybe she would return spoiled, like the wounded soldiers who came to the room from time to time, as Jessamyn had almost been...

...the room whirled around her, and they were there, they were still there, her sister and her sister. Something was wrong with her other sister, but she didn't want to look too closely, didn't really care as long as Jessamyn was alive. That girl would cope, she knew that by now. But Sophia, she wanted to protect her, to enfold her in her arms and never let her go, even as she knew that she could not, she could not cage her precious songbird, for fear that she would wither in such captivity.

\----

"You'll be our eyes and ears in England."

Except you won't come back, will you? People don't come back from Antarctica, not unless they're cowards who run at the first sign of danger, and neither one of you has a cowardly bone in your body. He might come back, he's got Captain Barton looking out for him and a dragon, and the Captain at least seems to have the good sense she was born with. But my angel only has her other sister to protect her, and oh Jessamyn, you still act like you have something to prove.

You will all go and die prettily in the snow, and stories will be told about you in hushed tones throughout history.

I will always remember you in my heart, my sister, my angel, my love. Please come home safe. Prove your doubting sister wrong.


	4. Fear & Faeries, a Meditation on the Fae

"And what do you think you are doing," stormed the Marchioness, "playing croquet at a time like this?"

She wasn't sure what she had expected, when she had said the house was overrun by the Fae. Tiny winged sprites, perhaps, chasing each other around with sparkling magic wands, trailing glitter all over the carpets. Or feather-haired, peacock creatures, sitting demurely at a table drinking tea, with a wild and ancient look in their eyes if you caught them just right.

Whatever she'd expected, it wasn't this. Robin Goodfellow was... he had a face, and he had arms, and he had legs, and there his resemblance to ordinary men almost entirely faltered. He was somehow at the same time both piecemeal and a dazzling, flowing whole, both ragged and well-dressed, both uncouth and uncannily respectible.

"Don't shake hands with them," advised her sister. "Don't give them your name. Names have power. And if they take your hand, they can take your face."

The one known as Briarwolf was rather differently introduced, his assault on his brother sudden and shocking, the creature with him equally as terrifying. It was clear that all three were of the same kind: each was a patchwork that told a story that seamlessly blended into a tapestry of life. There was a strange mixture of attraction and fear that hung around them like an aura, that drew her close and then twisted the world into violence that battered her into retreat despite her not being anything like its target.

She was relieved when she heard that they would not be required to watch them fight it out, but rather afraid that Briarwolf had been the victor, even so. Goodfellow had seemed the more approachable, the more controllable, and although she could appreciate the reasoning of those who had dealt with the problem, she couldn't help but feel that their conclusion had been biased by being those who would willingly approach such a thing as a confrontation between the Fae.

Avoiding the both of them where she could, it became more difficult as the evening wore on. He came to sit with them while they cowered in the room, and although she could bear him no ill will - he had saved Angelica's father and it appeared he had done a great service to the gentleman's manner and appearence in the process - she instinctively shrunk back in the chair. She knew that in the world which Briarwolf embodied, there was no future for her kind - that she was merely a prey animal to be stalked and butchered when the whim took a predator such as he.

She had no voice to warn the other lady when he offered his hand and she shook it, and although she worried for a moment that soon she would not know which kind face had Briarwolf's eyes staring out from it, she shook away the feeling as unnecessary paranoia. How could a creature like this limit himself to such a form? And how would it increase her danger even if he did? It was not as if she could somehow defend herself from him if only she could see him coming.

"I suppose I had better introduce you to my brother, now," he said, leading her into the darkness.

Having avoided their scrutiny so far, Cerine thought it deeply unfair that she should now be subject to the appraising look of those dark and secret eyes, but she supposed that she was going to have to get used to it, like so many other things. So she smiled, and fluttered, and did all of those things that one did to cover one's nerves in polite company, and hoped she had done a good enough job of smothering her feeling of being very small and easily hunted.

As they watched the wedding she was deeply envious of her Prince's firm hand with the creatures, how he could almost control them - how he was proving that royal blood did win true even through a difficult upbringing that had robbed him of the more complicated social graces that should have been his. Or maybe it was the confidence that you only got when you regularly did or considered doing something as foolhardy as jumping from one dragon to another in flight.

"Will you dance, my lady?"

And they were away - she could scarcely refuse, could she? - she could scarcely refuse even though she heard her sister dimly warning her as she took his hand and they stepped out into a clearer space. Where could she look? She did not want to look at him too closely, for fear of what she would find there; she did not want to look at the ground, which she was sure would be littered with blood and bullets.

But the dance took her away from that, took her away from her rational mind, took her away from the night and the fear. There was freedom in the dance, a wild freedom that Cerine had never tasted before, had never even concieved of the existance of. There were no rules - there was no pattern - but somehow it worked all the same. Such a flow of life and power that she quite forgot who and what she was dancing with, and offered comment on the surroundings unbidden and unsolicited, something she would never have had the confidence to undertake in her rightful mind.

Even after the dance had ended, for some time it still felt like she was spinning and spinning, and although the fear had not gone, it was tempered by... something else. It wasn't quite a yearning, because she knew that the call of the wild was not for her, she knew that she was exactly who and what and where she should be, no more and no less. Not quite a yearning, but an understanding.

Although she did still, somewhat, quietly, wish that he hadn't invited them to the wedding.


	5. When I Was Your Age

"When I was your age," mused the dressmaker, as she had Cerine captive in measuring tapes and fabric pins, "it was still all skipping through the fields picking flowers, and here you are getting married!"

"There's no point in waiting," replied Cerine sniffily, thinking it was rather above this dressmaker's station to comment on such things.

"Your dear sisters will be terribly envious," the dressmaker went on. "Little Cerine married, and to a prince as well!"

"My sisters are perfectly happy with the arrangement." And, she did not add, because she was a well-mannered girl, it is really none of your business.

\----

"She won't let me go," admitted Sophia.

There was a long time, then, when Cerine could do nothing but cling to her sister, not caring who saw. It didn't _solve_ anything, it didn't mean anything was going to _work out_, it didn't mean everything would be okay. It wasn't as simple as the alternative.

But at least she wasn't going to be on her own.

"You wouldn't be on your own, anyway," said Sophia, ever the practical one. "There's nothing to say that your husband won't come back. And anyway there's Georgina, and Constance, and our brothers, and Mother and Father..."

Cerine looked up at her, aghast. _How could you ever think any of that could replace you?_

But Sophia was already pulling back, just sightly, with a self-deprecating smile. "You won't need me any more, sister. Not after a while."

"I will always need you," Cerine declared impulsively. "I will cry every day on your grave! We will be inseparable."

"You will have to learn to live without me," protested Sophia. "I won't always be around. There's a whole world out there."

"I would come with you," replied Cerine, wistfully. "You know that, right?"

"I know," mourned Sophia, "but you can't. It's not... you."

And Cerine knew, but she wasn't going to admit it.


	6. Not A Fairytale

Once upon a time, there was a girl.

Her name was Cerine Faulconer. She was the foremost beauty of Kent. There was not a care in her heart, and she knew for what she was destined - a husband, some children, then an early death from childbirth or disease. 

She had decided that she would prefer a nice case of something consumptive, withering away prettily in bed with her sisters and her husband in attendance. Much more picturesque than some kind of squalid death from bleeding, or even worse, hanging onto life until she was some miserable grey mockery of her younger self.

The wedding had been everything in the past year. Finding some venue that was pleasant enough to be adequate, but distant enough and small enough to maintain control of the guest list. And to avoid embarrassment from the guest list, which needed to contain all manner of Aerial Corps and foreigners and Catholics that had been at Goblin Coombe or were the Prince's friends or friends thereof.

Once upon a time, there was a girl.

Her evening dress was blue, with an overdress of Indian inspiration but still very British design and manufacture. She made the final alterations to the seating plan, based on what the servants had told her of who was actually in attendance for dinner.

On their way into the hall, passing through the gauntlet of smiling and greeting, nice young men and repulsive old gentlemen both insisted on kissing her hand. Jessamyn said later that she was fairly sure none of the latter had caught her wiping it on her dress as if contaminated, or making what her sister most uncharitably described as 'the most hilarious expression'.

The Prince was late for dinner, someone had dropped half the pepper-pot in the soup, and some creature that claimed to be Featherstonehaugh made its uninvited appearance; she would have sent it away, but her sister insisted she wanted to speak to it later, and she could scarcely refuse her favourite sister such a request. So it sat across the way at the empty bottom table, after a hideous faux pas with Serafina, and spoke to the Hussar, but mostly it stared.

Once upon a time, there was a girl.

There were cards and there was 'red' and there were only a few awkward moments when she was left to talk with her father, who she secretly almost felt sorry for - she still had some memories of him a little younger and a lot sharper than he was today.

And there were Russians and there was 'blue' and there was obviously something he was trying to tell her but she wasn't having any of it, not at this time of night, not before the wedding. There would be plenty of time for everything after it was too late to believe she could make an informed decision.

Vodka in studded leather; Featherstonehaugh making a nuisance of himself. First he shot the Russians' vampire. Then he kept trying to get her sister mixed up in something dangerous and unpatriotic. And then he was just generally obnoxious, and he was what, a thousand years old he said, well past when he should have left well enough alone and gone to meet his Maker. So someone was uninvited to the wedding.

"Rosethorn wants to talk to you."

"That's nice."

"So her request is perfectly reasonable?"

"With the information that she has, I can see how she would think her request is reasonable."

"Are you calling my wife-to-be ill-informed?"

_discontinuity_

Once upon a time there was a wood.

It's Robin's Wood, Robin's Wood, Robin's Wood.

"Sing us a song, Missus Briarwolf!"

"When you die, can I have your eyes? I like your eyes."

"Don't you have any songs in you?"

_Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name_

She doesn't really know how to pray, but she thinks it's the kind of thing you do in the circumstances.

"He doesn't love you, you know."

"He only has eyes for Mary. His heart is hers. You know that."

"I could make you much happier."

_Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our sins_

_Forgive us our sins._ Is what she has done a sin? She has thoughts, sometimes, that aren't really appropriate; she isn't perhaps as pious as she should be.

"Will you be my mummy, Mrs Briarwolf?"

"You don't want to love him. You could live forever here. You will be my Queen in Faerie."

"Will you have babies, Mrs Briarwolf?"

_As we forgive those who trespass against us_

There have been so many mirages that she can hardly credit it when she sees him. She has become suspicious of the evidence of her eyes.

"Why, I have rescued her, of course."

The courtiers laugh and caper, mock and jest, try to get her to sing them a song.

"You think she wants you, you ugly disfigured ogre?"

_For thine be the power, the glory and the honour_

And then the dance begins, the slow careful dance of steel, the slicing and the yelling and the blood flowing like a dream within a dream...

"Form up over here!"

"There's nothing I can do for her, do we have another surgeon?"

"Can you hear me?"

_for ever and ever and ever amen_

She is waking up on her back on the forest floor, and her sister's face is swimming into focus above her, concerned and talking.

"Are you real? Are you really real?"

"Sister... remember when I was seven, and I tortured your doll?"

"You're real! You're really here!"

_not looking in the bushes_

It is all very confusing and her cousin faints twice and there is running and she is being _carried_ by a _werewolf_ or is it _Bellamy_?

"Her head... her head..."

"By the pact, I order this portal to be opened!"

"Is everyone through?"

_discontinuity_

Once upon a time...

No. This is not a fairytale. The disembodied voice wishing them well is going to cause a young girl to die in misery. If those drawn swords are used, it will be all medical and unpleasant.

This is not a fairytale, but they leave the chapel arm in arm and his ring on her finger, ready to start sorting out the unfortunate business of getting the details right on that thing where they live happily ever after, or something.

(the little Polish girl gave her miniatures)

(she watched Angelica make a perfect throw)

(when she went to look at them they dented)

(she sat at the fountain and ate the cakes)

(wanted terribly to tear the tiny pictures)

(to make them a symbol of how broken things were)

_discontinuity_

Once upon a time, there was a girl.

Now, she is not sure what there is.

But she's going to do what she can.


End file.
